Print Joey

Literacy

Picture crossword

Picture crossword settings

Help level
Choose a picture theme
Pictures in this puzzle
  1. 1A brown bear standing on all foursbear
  2. 2A brown and white puppy with a red collardog
  3. 3A grey elephant with a raised trunkelephant
  4. 4A brown owl with big round eyesowl
  5. 5An orange tiger with black stripestiger

Only a word we have a drawing for can be a clue here, so the list is the theme’s pictures. Swap any of them — changing the help level never swaps them for you.

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My Animal Picture CrosswordName: A grey elephant with a raised trunk2 →A brown and white puppy with a red collar4 →A brown bear standing on all fours5 →A brown owl with big round eyes1 ↓An orange tiger with black stripes3 ↓O1E2T3D4B5Created with Print Joey — printjoey.com
Page 1 of 2
Answer keyOWELEPHANTIDOGEBEAR123452 → ELEPHANT4 → DOG5 → BEAR1 ↓ OWL3 ↓ TIGERCreated with Print Joey — printjoey.com
Page 2 of 2 — answer key

Quick guide

How it works

Make a printable crossword whose clues are drawings rather than sentences. A row of numbered pictures prints above the grid, each one pointing at the entry it belongs to, so a child who cannot yet read a clue can still work out that the picture of a rabbit goes in six squares. Choose a picture theme and a help level, swap any drawing you like, and download an A4 or US Letter PDF with an answer key.

Pick a help level, choose a theme, then swap any picture before printing.

  1. Choose a help level. That sets how many pictures there are and whether first letters or a word bank are printed.

  2. Choose a picture theme — animals, ocean, space, dinosaurs, farm or food. The drawings and their words come chosen for you.

  3. Swap any picture you want to change, then download the PDF with its answer key.

Teaching tip

Using these worksheets in teaching

A picture crossword separates two skills that an ordinary crossword asks for at once. There is no clue to read and no word to retrieve from a definition — the child is looking at a rabbit — so the whole of the task is orthographic: hold the word in mind, count the squares, and spell it letter by letter with the crossings agreeing. That makes it usable a year or two before a written crossword is, and it makes it usable with a child who reads in another language at home, since a drawing needs no translation. Start on Easy with the first letters printed; move to Growing when the child stops needing them, which turns the sheet into a matching exercise against the word bank; move to Challenge when they can spell the theme unaided.

Frequently asked questions

  • How does a child solve a crossword with no clues to read?

    By the pictures. Each drawing carries a number and an arrow — 3 with a right arrow, 4 with a down arrow — matching a numbered square in the grid, so the child finds the square, names the picture and spells it letter by letter into the boxes. Nothing on the page has to be read, which is the whole point: the puzzle tests spelling and vocabulary rather than reading.

  • Why is there an arrow on every picture?

    Because one numbered square can start two answers, one running across and one running down, and both would otherwise show the same number. A written crossword separates those under Across and Down headings — but a child who cannot read the clues cannot read those headings either. The arrow says which way the word runs, and it is the one form of that instruction a pre-reader already knows.

  • What do the help levels change?

    Easy prints five pictures with the first letter of every answer already written in. Growing prints seven and swaps the letters for a word bank underneath. Challenge prints nine with neither. Every one of those settings stays on the page afterwards, so you can take one back without losing the rest.

  • Can I use my own words?

    Only words we have a drawing for, and that is a real limit rather than an oversight — on this sheet the picture is the clue, so a word with no picture would be a clue pointing at nothing. Press the pencil on any row to swap in another drawing from the theme. If you want to type your own words, use the crossword maker or the kids crossword instead.

  • Will it print on a black-and-white printer?

    Yes. The drawings are in colour and come out as greyscale, which stays recognisable; everything the sheet adds — the grid, the numbers, the badges around them and the word bank — is black line work, so a mono print costs no more ink than any other worksheet here.

  • Is there an answer key?

    Yes. The completed grid prints on a second page along with the answers written out — 3 across, LION — so you can mark the sheet without naming every picture yourself.

Related tools

Last reviewed: July 2026. Worksheet content is generated by deterministic algorithms and covered by automated correctness tests — no AI-generated answers.